At The Establishment, Tori Truscheit asks, “How can the queerest generation ever still believe in gender roles?”

If that question seems jaw-droppingly lacking in self-awareness, congratulations: you have been paying attention. If, on the other hand, you’re scratching your head, trying to get to the bottom of why a society drowning in rainbows and glitter, with endless “genders” to choose from, remains so steadfastly misogynistic, you’ve probably spent too much time at Everyday Feminism and TheEstablishment…

We have one problem to start: the word “queer,” which in the past (first as an insult, then reclaimed) referred more explicitly to gay and lesbian people, has recently come to mean pretty much anything. We have heterosexual women and men calling themselves “queer” because they claim to be “non-binary,” like “kinky” sex, or wear glittery makeup. In other words, today, “queer” and “gay” do not mean the same thing. And mushing together homosexuality with a variety of chosen identities or funky haircuts means that the question of why “the queerest generation” might not be progressive on the issue of women’s liberation is flawed from the start, because it’s unclear what the word “queer” even means in this context.

Either way, whether we are talking about gay men or those who identify as “queer,” there is one glaring reason why sexist gender roles have stuck around: being “queer” is not necessarily the same thing as being feminist. In fact, in many ways the queer movement has wholly rejected women’s liberation, as a political aim.

Truscheit is right on one thing: the gay marriage movement was not particularly feminist. Rather, this was a liberal effort that chose not to challenge the institution of marriage itself — which exists only because men wished to trade women as commodities, among themselves — and instead fought for inclusion in a heterosexist, patriarchal tradition. This is actually a useful demonstration of the difference between liberal feminism and radical feminism: one fights for equal access to already existing institutions, the other fights for a new system (and therefore new institutions) entirely.

Most (if not all) American liberals support gay marriage, unequivocally, but don’t necessarily have any vested interest in destroying male supremacy. (This is evidenced, for example, by liberal support for things like the porn industry and the legalization of brothels.) Liberals are capitalist, also, which means, again, they are invested in maintaining the systems already in place, but tweaking them a little, in order to offer an illusion of equality (i.e. if we all are allowed to make more money, get married, and own property, the world will be a better place.)

It is here that North American liberals tend to get lost on the question of feminism: they fail to understand that in order to achieve liberation for women and other oppressed groups, capitalism and patriarchy need more than a few tweaks.

Truscheit writes:

“More than half of high school students identify as something other than straight, 12 per cent of millennials are trans or gender nonconforming, and millennials overwhelmingly support gay marriage.

In a world where millennials are increasingly embracing marginalized groups, you’d think their accompanying views on gender would follow suit.”

But the thing is that none of the positions or identities listed here are necessarily anti-patriarchy. By and large, the male-led fight for “marriage equality” ignored the plight of women in its effort, meaning that the oppressive system behind homophobia remained intact, despite marriage rights. Gender identity discourse misunderstands how the system of gender works and that it exists to oppress women and legitimize male supremacy. And “embracing marginalized groups” doesn’t mean understanding or fighting the underlying systems that ensure certain groups are oppressed as a class. To liberals, “marginalization” doesn’t need to happen on a class basis — it can happen on an individual basis, which is why liberal societies keep digging themselves deeper into these pits of violence and vast inequality — because fighting structures of oppression can’t happen within an individualist framework.

Truscheit’s big mistake is to look towards yet another anti-feminist, liberal movement for a solution to patriarchy: queer politics.

Trans activist Mya Byrne at Pride San Fransisco, June 25, 2017.

While Truscheit blames “mainstream gays” for not “questioning gender,” she lets the trans movement off the hook — an odd blind spot considering that trans activism is largely responsible for re-popularizing the idea of gender itself. Whereas feminism has said gender, under patriarchy, is something we should reject, not embrace, today’s queer movement has positioned gender as fun and liberatory. Indeed, transgenderism itself can only exist so long as we have gender and believe gender roles are fine, so long as we choose them.

Truscheit says the “white male activists behind the marriage equality movement… sacrificed trans rights on the altar of their own desired outcome,” connecting this to what she perceives as a failure to “question gender.” But what she doesn’t realize is that an end to gender means an end to transgenderism — we can’t “identify” with gender roles if there are none to identify with. Indeed, if the gay rights movement had explicitly gone after gender, the result would not have been allyship with the transgender movement.

While I understand feeling let down by those around us who claim to want a more just, more equitable world, what feminists have learned over and over again in the past 150-odd years is that we can’t rely on male-centered movements. In order to liberate women, we need to put our energy into political activism and ideology that centers women and addresses the root of male supremacy.

Transgenderism isn’t going to save us from male dominance anymore than liberal gay men or male anarchists will. If we want real change, we need to look back, and take our cues from the women who broke ties with the men who sold them out and took matters into their own hands. From Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who, after being betrayed by their abolitionist allies, formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), which refused to support constitutional changes that did not enfranchise women; to the radical feminists of the late 1960s, who told the left to fuck off because “we’re starting our own movement;” to the black women involved in black militant politics who were expected to take a “traditional feminine role,” allowing men to lead the movement and hold positions of power within it — these women learned the lessons we should have memorized by now.

There is one answer to the question of patriarchy — there always has been. While queer politics may be more trendy (a result, in part, of its marketability and individualist ethos), feminism is the only political movement that can free women from the shackles of male domination.

Liberals like Truscheit and her colleagues at The Establishment will continue spinning their wheels until they decide to pick up where first and second wave radicals left off. We need to stop looking around, and asking ourselves who to turn to next: our sisters have the answer.

Founder & Editor

Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer and journalist. She has been podcasting and writing about feminism since 2010 and has published work in numerous national and international publications, including New Statesman, Vice, Al Jazeera, The Globe and Mail, I-D, Truthdig, and more. Meghan completed a Masters degree in the department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University in 2012 and lives in Vancouver, B.C. with her dog.

There was a very short window in the early 1970s when a small minority of gay men, in response to the women’s movement, did question male supremacy namely via its dominance/submission based sexuality. This occurred in a few big cities, and peaked in 1972, and was one of the historic gay moments.

And it did make its voice heard in the gay press, which was both critical but also dangerous.

For soon the gay porn industry, which financed much of the same gay press, perhaps already experiencing limited losses, and certainly aware of its future impact, not only withdrew its ads, but pushed a pro-sex line, which quickly led to an increase in sales.

And this valiant, pro-feminist, rising was diminished as quickly as it rose. (enter queer theory)

AFW

Keep up the good work, Meghan.

Meghan Murphy

Thanks sister.

Hekate Jayne

This is only kind of tangentially related, but I have been waiting for this to happen. And, so far, it’s exactly what I thought it would be.

In case the link doesn’t work (because I am old and linking be tricky), this is the twitter for a Trans male named Zinna. And Zinna is explaining to hetero males that they should go ahead and have sex with the ladymenz.

Shockingly, hetero males are all of the NOPE.

And yet, even more shocking! Not a single threat. Not a single male called a terf. Not a single violent word is being lobbed at hetero males.

Lesbians don’t get that courtesy. I have never heard a trans say that before.

Proof that trans refuse to be violent to males, and threatening to us. Like the male cowards that they are.

JingFei

Yes. Lesbians have been dealing with this bullshit for at least 5 years, and no one cared. In fact, men just shrugged it off. Lefty dudes told us we were transphobic “Terfs”. But when it is MILDLY directed at straight men? It makes TELEVISION news.

I’m not sure whether to be further infuriated, or tickled that TRA’s are going after straight men. The more they go after the men folk, the faster society will wake up and smack them down to reality; they should be able to live their lives as they see fit, safely and free of violence. But they cannot impede on the rights and safety of others. They cannot dictate how we think, believe, how we properly speak, or who we are naturally attracted to,

Hekate Jayne

Well, dresses or no, they are still male.

And I think that ladymales will end up demanding and threatening. Being kind, patient, and generally nice go against the males’ nature. They won’t be able to keep up that facade for very long.

Both sets of males are being patient. For now.

But it won’t last.

yrba

Thank you.

Lucia Lola

I took martial arts because I felt I needed something extra to protect myself from predatory, abusive men. Looks like they come in much more varied packages than I originally thought.

Good thing I’m not afraid. Bring it.

Also, fantastic breakdown yet again, Meghan.

Danielle Matheson

Yes. All the fucking yeses.

FierceMild

Men hate our humanity. It’s just true. They wish we were animals and are really angry that we’re not.
Even purportedly heterosexual men don’t find women sexually appealing at all. We have to change something about each part of our body before we’re deemed fuckable. Hair must be colored and styled within an inch of its life, we must paint a more acceptable face over our normal faces, boobs must be reshape properly, arms need to be “toned” but not muscular, body must be frail and small, legs, vulva, and underarms hairless, feet rubbed free of the callous that protects them from harm, nails painted. Deviate from this and they find us nausea inducing…I think they’re sex negative. And the sex they’re negative about is the female sex. They don’t even actually want sex they want to dick-humiliate painfully modified frankenanimals.

Hekate Jayne

They are all gay.

And I don’t mean that as a degredation, or an insult. What I mean is that they love each other to the exclusion of everyone and everything else.

They design laws, systems and hierarchies that put them on top. They resent that anything that is for their use (women, children, animals, the planet) has wants and needs.

For example, they enjoy having a dog. They like the adoration and love that the dog gives. But they don’t want to feed it, care for it, make sure it has what it needs. Males resent that. They hate it.

It’s obvious, and they don’t even try to hide it. That’s why they legislate our existence down to our uterus. We just think that we own our bodies. They make sure that we actually don’t. Because we exist as props for their use.

And they insure that all males get this, because they are absolutely in love with each other. The rest of us are just props.

Rachel

It’s so true. Out of any sex – males are the least likely to look out how they consume living beings – whether that’s through food, pets, or sexual gratification. I always thought women were props also. I sometimes look around at all the bozos walking around looking women up and down like a piece of meat, and all women are dolled up to the nines and watching men watch them, and some (especially younger women – only because they’ve been brainwashed) prance around like important peacocks. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory way towards them, because like I said, they’ve been brainwashed. But what the don’t realise is they are walking props on display for men and they are playing into it unknowingly by changing themselves and wearing uncomfortable clothes and the vibe of importance they have doesn’t change shit – they are still there for male consumption.

Hanakai

I have also had the sense that men, or a large proportion of them, are essentially and basically homosexual. That would explain why so many men are obsessed with sports, avidly worshiping the fine specimens that are athletes, and expending their vital emotional energy on the homoerotic fanaticism with which they cheer, love, support their teams. It would explain why so many men love the war and military, where they get to engage in total and permissible homosocial bonding with other males; why so many men fondly look at their military years as the high point of their lives. Gang rapes, too, are a form of homoerotic homosocial bonding. As are fraternity houses, in which initiations and hazings often involved nudity, anal penetration and sexual humiliation. Or the male traditions of circle jerks. Or think about hedge fund traders and analysts working in all-male environments; or all-male corporate boards; or the merchant marine.

Homosocial bonding is a mechanism and social dynamic that involves the maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. In homosocial boding, men through the way they relate with other men, uphold and maintain patriarchy, build environments closed to women and defend their privileges and positions.

Some interesting explication of the homoeroticism of military culture.

Tobysgirl

If readers haven’t heard of it, some might be interested in H.R. Hayes’s book The Dangerous Sex (referring to how men view women). It’s an anthropological overview of men’s weirdnesses.
Males do behave quite bizarrely in each other’s company. My husband was friends in nursing school with another working-class man. He was at our house one day helping to stack firewood and he grabbed my husband (who hates to be touched by men) who got very upset. Another thing to remember about the situations you detail above is that they all provide men with ROLES. Whether a man is in a fraternity, the military, Wall Street, the clergy, etc, they have a role to function within which even provides them with what to say. Men are mostly very socially awkward and they seem to need a role in order to interact with others at all.

FierceMild

Nice observation about roles and scripts! That rings very true to me.

will

Yes, and they need hierarchies. So they perceive, project, invent and enforce them at every opportunity.

Topazthecat

I have always said that most heterosexual men are really gay,they just don’t know it,they hate women for *no rational reason,the very people they are born and nurtured by,and they even put women’s vagina’s(where they were born out of) and our external genitals,but they worship their own penises instead,they just love to use our vaginas to serve their penises they worship! And they prefer themselves and each other for everything else.

melissa

“Men hate our humanity. It’s just true. They wish we were animals and are really angry that we’re not.”

Wow that’s a really a great point! I never thought of it like that. I always knew we had to change everything about ourselves and just figured it was a power play on their part – keeping us in our place. I never thought about it the way you explained.

corvid

Absolutely. They are pathologically, irrationally obsessed with themselves and with dominance. It’s almost like pushing women down is a reflex. Our humanity threatens their perceived status.

Tobysgirl

But we are all animals. One of the fundamental foundation stones of civilization and patriarchy is denial of the FACT that we are animals. In patriarchy, lesser beings — children, women, and lesser men — are animals while elite males are not. What a mind fuck! If we all would just accept that we are animals, that animal functions are part of life, what a different world we would live in. But, no, human beings have to believe they are special — yeah, we’re special, we’re the most disgusting species to ever evolve and I’m hope this experiment ends soon.

FierceMild

I think I see your point, but if we’re “the most disgusting species to ever evolve” then you’re allowing that – while we are animals in some sense – we are acting out of a kind of choice and decision other animals don’t have. Otherwise when otters rape baby seals to death or cats torture their victims before eating them they would be at least put on trial.

Edgar

[radical/real] Feminism is incompatible with capitalism which requires unpaid labour (primarily women at home) and slave-like labour (primarily women in factories & sweat shops). How could ever have any kind of equality in a system that necessitates hierarchy? I’d say they (the men in power) are more afraid of feminism than they were ever afraid of communism.

The transgender/queer movement is likely an assault at feminism from within. The Trojan horse of the patriarchy.

Scott

“The transgender/queer movement is likely an assault at feminism from within.” Hmm. Do you mean from within “feminism?” If so, that can’t be true, as the transgender/queer movement owes its continued existence to the continued existence (and practice) of the notions/ideas/prescriptions/enforcement of gender. The transgender/queer movement’s fight to preserve oppressive ideas and practices around gender makes them absolutely anti-feminist and absolutely conservative, and therefore we shouldn’t consider the transgender/queer movement “within” feminism at all.

susannunes

“Gender” should not exist at all. Queer theory is a load of bullshit and has no business being codified into law.

unfashionable

Brilliant! The Trojan horse of the patriarchy. I will remember that.

Tobysgirl

Super essay.
My question is, how does one embrace “marginalized groups” when one doesn’t talk about women’s rights, workers’ rights, minority rights? Or if one does embrace minority rights it consists of blocking traffic and talking about how the “police need to acknowledge our feelings” (Portland, Maine, BLM demo). Where have I heard that phrase before?
Young people seem sad and pathetic to me when they’re not being little vandals for the trans brigade (I’m very thankful I’m not growing up in this even madder world than when I was young). So it heartened me tremendously to see two young women at the University of Maine — one a wildlife ecology major, the other in veterinary sciences — talk about their internship at Avian Haven, a bird rehabilitation center.

I can see why lesbians joined with gay men in the beginning, when people were concerned about jobs, housing and other basic rights, like not being arrested for homosexuality. I think people needed to pull together in the beginning. But then of course the women got co-opted.

Hanakai

OK, this makes sense. The alliance made sense when the goal was anti-discrimination legislation.

My husband and I were just talking about this today. We married young and I would still choose to be partnered with him now, but our understanding of what marriage is and its antecedents are very different to what they were when we married. Pair bondings seem really normal for humans (possibly with shorter time spans), but the Judeo-Christian patriarchal marriage scheme is just revolting.

Julia

Right, I’ve been with my boyfriend for ten years, we live together, but we don’t plan on marrying. What we have done is more like pair bonding, which I do believe is natural for humans – and in fact certain other primate species (like gibbons). Marriage, on the other hand, is how many societies twist this pair bonding to the advantage of men.

FierceMild

Yes. Children complicate things because we adopted the ludicrous notion that children should be claimed through the father (what!) and based a society around that. Also, modern life requires things like a medical will etc. complicated.

lk

It boggles my mind that Truscheit recognizes the danger of gender essentialism while supporting transideolgy.

How can she not see that transideolgy rests on the whole idea of innate gender?!

“The gay marriage movement brought about massive cultural change, but did very little to change straight people’s perspectives on gender.”

Did gay marriage really bring about massive cultural change? I don’t really think so. The only thing that gay marriage did was allow gays/lesbians to get married…it doesnt really seem to have had much of a progressive or ripple effect on much else.

lk

Lol at that conversation…

“Most people like gender roles..”

I guess that is the standard by which we judge things, if people like it then its great!!

Let’s not even question why we like the things we do or consider why so many women embrace submissiveness, while men embrace dominance or think about larger questions of equality..

Let’s just worry about if some people like it….

Alienigena

I would question the accuracy of the statement “most people like gender roles”. And would ask, “Then why do so many girls resist ‘growing up’ and becoming women by starving themselves or identifying out of womanhood” as non-binary, queer, or whatever. I can’t say that I was immune to this rejection of womanhood. I found the prospect of becoming a woman terrifying occasionally and not very appealing at other times. The gender roles of girl and woman seemed very confining. I wasn’t even a tomboy. My interests were pretty untomboyish like reading, music (piano, choir), puppetry, horseback riding though I liked the outdoors (camping, hiking). I didn’t mind wearing dresses until I hit my teens. If someone who doesn’t mind all aspects of girlhood can be frightened by the prospect of becoming a woman (depictions of women in tv and movies weren’t flattery for the most part when I was growing up, I admit I was influenced by them) what about the females who reject girl/woman from the start of their lives. Body acceptance (working with it, rather than against it) is more relevant than body positivity. I saw the title of an article on body positivity on the cover of a woman’s magazine yesterday and started muttering, “what absolute cant”. Society does not want us to accept our bodies as is as there is no profit in it for their cosmetic surgeons or corporations.

FierceMild

Yes. Your story is very compelling. I can do clearly see how a calm or introverted temperament could sort of fly under the femininity wire during childhood, but have no such luck during young womanhood. My daughter is like you describe ourself as being. On the quiet side with very internal interests but not necessarily “feminine”. It doesn’t make womanhood less daunting.

Topazthecat

Most people are taught to like,accept and believe the myth that gender roles are natural,from the moment they are born,as female and male new borns,and perceived and treated so differently,in every way,by parents and other adult care givers from birth on even though they are actually born biologically more alike than different,with very few differences.And the entire sexist,male dominated,very artificially gender divided,gender stereotyped society,that is totally obsessed and oriented to making the sexes into these opposite ”feminine” and ”masculine” categories which gender roles therefore reinforce and perpetuate.And people who conform to gender roles are rewarded,and people who reject them are punished.

Mackenzie Ninee

wow. just wow. truscheit’s article uses sexism done against women to call for trans rights? WHAT ABOUT WOMEN’S RIGHTS? i can’t stand it. attitudes about *women* define us as mothering, weak, and helpmeets, NOT transwomen. this is not expected of transwomen, they do not work themselves to exhaustion like this. 3 *biological* women are murdered every day, but the distinction is always ignored when validating transwomen.

this is why i refuse to accept ‘cis’. the selective usage of ‘cis’ erases females as the target of violence while construing the victims of ‘women’s’ subjugation to men… transwomen. the institution of marriage subjugates females. why does truscheit insist that we are an afterthought instead of the primary victims of misogyny?

susannunes

The first thing feminists need to do is STOP using the trans terminology. These guys are NOT women of any sort, so therefore the term “transwomen” should NEVER be used.

Julia

I agree. In my posts on my blog I am also beginning to refuse to respect pronouns. I used to be okay with respecting pronouns, but this is one slippery slope that has just gone completely bizerk. If I use “she” I am actually enabling this whole trans mess, and it makes such violence as “I Punch TERFS” seem like female violence against other females when really it is the same time-honored, misogynistic bullshit.

FierceMild

I use sex-based accurate pronouns, but I do say ‘transwoman,’ to clearly delineate men who think they’re women from both normal men and actual women. No matter what anyone says we all know perfectly well transwomen are men. Male-to-trans is just too long and besides, they’re still male. Calling them men doesn’t distinguish them from men who aren’t pretending to be women. And using transmale is unclear because of the bogus liberal belief that male is not a sex but an idea as well as the constant conflating of sex and gender.

I know susannunes is coming from a different perspective, but I think my reasons for using ‘transwoman’ are valid and useful (obvs. or I’d do something else).

Zuzanna Smith

I prefer the term Trans Identified Male, TIM.

FierceMild

It suffers from the problem of only being useful among those who know that ‘male’ isn’t a feeling. Some of the people we’re trying to talk to about this would posit that a trans identified male is a transman…which is to say a rude woman.

Hanakai

Yes. There needs to be a term that is consonant with reality and that allows others to understand what one is talking about. I was writing a comment for another publication where the other commenters were all referring to trans-women and seemed not to get my reference to delusional males.

Recently was reading a piece by Germaine Greer in which she refers to these M2F delusionals as “pantomine dames,” which seemed rather spot-on. Her whole chapter titled Pantomine Dames in her book, The Whole Woman.

Jeanne Deaux

I use it just to avoid getting banned off Facebook, and Facebook *is* a cesspool but it’s also the easiest place to find people of like mind. But I also use MTT or M2T, and I do not respect pronouns. I thought about respecting them for people like Miranda Yardley, who so far has not lost his goddamn mind and turned on us, but as he doesn’t care one way or the other, I’ve decided facts are just as good.

I have however sometimes taken to writing “transwoman” with quotation marks, or following it with [sic]. Getting in my digs without being SO brazen I put myself at risk. I know, I know… But there it is.

Hanakai

After some thought, I have decided I am going to refer to these folks as Franken-men, or SHMMO for Surgically-Hormonally Modified Male Organisms.

It really is Frankensteinian what is going on. There is talk of taking the wombs from corpses and surgically implanting them in the delusional & mentally ill males who think they are women.

Mackenzie Ninee

i use transwoman because it makes it immediately clear which group of people im talking about to anyone involved in the discussion, and i wont have to spend any time clarifying and defining who im talking about. i never include a space between trans and woman because of the point susannunes made. they are not women, they are men. they are not simply a demographic of women, they are men. i do not ”respect” preferred pronouns ever, so i dont really think my language is defferential to gender identity.

FierceMild

Right fucking on!

willow

I don’t know…. but I would think the new generation of “non-binary” movement is distinct from the transgender or even “genderqueer” movement in a sense that the former truly seems to be interested in defying the sex-role stereotypes rather than playing with them or inventing 50 shades of new genders.

I remember the writings of earlier feminists from the 1970s and 1980s. They believed that the ideal state of humanity is androgyny, which they viewed as a way of being fully human. Therefore the most logical aim of feminism is the total abolition of gender, in which every person is “non-binary.”

The early gay liberation movement likewise called for an abolition of marriage and nuclear family. The push for same-sex marriage as a major political movement in America only began in the 1990s, just as the “third-wave feminism” emerged in the U.S. Coincidence? I think not.

susannunes

The problem is the queer theory insanity is influencing LAW and throwing all common sense out the window. Women are being destroyed as a protected class because of the whack job queer theory. There is no such thing as “non-binary.” Queer theory needs to be gotten rid of on college campuses, which is where this indoctrination has taken hold.

“Gender,” meaning sex roles, IS binary. “Non-binary” is a nonword. You don’t go around and put on your driver’s license you are a “non-binary” or put it on your birth certificate. This garbage is being conflated with sex. There are only two categories of sex roles, masculine and feminine. Sex is also binary because it has to do with reproduction. There are only two sexes, male and female. Queer theory is BULLSHIT. So is postmodernism. So is transgenderism. All of it is a giant train wreck on society, and it needs to be purged, beginning on college campuses.

Deb Thompson

I differ on one point, it needs to be purged, beginning in high school, at least here in Australia, because that is where they are starting to be influenced by peers, and challenged, bullied, and made felt less than or not worthy. It is real and it is crushing on those who’s family are not a support,or invested in a childs psyche, or emotions,especially when they are moving into teenager school years.

fxduffy

Au contraire, androgyny is no more than a theoretic combo of a man and a woman. You cannot combine power or form to matter without manipulating and using it. The male is the mind, the will, the controller, the female the body, the controlled. Androgyny, far from liberating women, is a trick to bind her more deeply to patriarchal rule.

Non-binary is meaningless in terms of equality because only one sex is gendered. There’s no binary to begin with.

Tobysgirl

Just curious. Do you really believe only one sex is gendered? Do you really think men are free to behave as they choose? I suggest watching an old movie, The Hill, about a prison camp run by the British for British soldiers. It’s an excellent summation of hyper-masculinization, the goal of which is to turn men into things. It is little wonder that things treat every other living being as things. To turn that Jewish prayer on its head I wake up every morning and thank god I am not a man.

Kris

Yes, there are men who suffer within the patriarchy, so what? Still not women’s responsibility to care for those men, especially when it’s still men as a class who made the rules of masculinity that we are suffering under.

Jeanne Deaux

We need two cells to make a baby. Therefore there are two sexes. That’s a binary.

You got the idea of male being the mind and female being the body straight from patriarchy. Way to go.

Kris

I don’t believe there is such a “non-binary movement” that you speak of. The current non-binary talk is part of the whole genderqueer snowflake spectrum as much as anything else.

Example: I know a couple that considers themselves a “queer” non-heterosexual couple because the woman identifies as a “non-binary femme” (Yes, this is a thing. In other words, she doesn’t identify as a woman but DOES identify with femininity. Which yet again begs the question of what in the ever loving hell does woman mean in this post modernist funhouse. But I digress). So here we have a FEMALE adhering to all the typical standards of femininity set forth by the patriarchy who is married to a MALE, but they call themselves “queer” and attend gay pride parades together.

However, they acknowledge that they have some level of privilege because they are able to “pass” as a straight, heterosexual couple, which they equate to a transwoman who passes well as a female. You may roll your eyes hard now.

will

I fear my eyes will never come back down.

“…the woman identifies as a “non-binary femme””

Yeah, that sounds like a novelty country song of the genus “I am my own Grandpa” or “Lord it’s hard to be humble”.

Jeanne Deaux

Non-binary and androgyny are two different things. Non-binary tries to label everyone as being sexless, because the people who came up with the term don’t know the difference between sex and gender.

An androgynous person is still “he” or “she”. A non-binary person tries to pretend they’re neither.

The problem isn’t the having a sex but the culturally-imposed trappings that come with it.

I’m not much impressed with so-called radicals calling for the abolition of marriage. They propose to replace it with nothing, except possibly supplanting the biological family with an assembly of biological strangers. Speaking from personal experience, the latter is no improvement on the former and will likely lead to an uptick in identity crises as well; the problem with biological families isn’t so much that they’re bad for you as that so many people are mentally ill from this sick culture and they take it out on their nearest and dearest. But you don’t escape from that by “creating a family” out of your bestest buddies. If anything you accelerate the ending of those friendships, a majority of the time.

In my view the ideal outcome would be if we went back to something more tribal, with the matrilineal extended family being the foundation of society. We could have other types of families too, for when individual people’s family situations break down, but they wouldn’t be the ONLY game going.

fxduffy

These questions about gay and straight men vis-a-vis women is a very involved one, but in the early 1970s, there’s no doubt that the majority of men drawn to, and changed by, feminism, were gay.

Women wanted men to align themselves with them, and those answering that call were more often than not, gay. I think perhaps because they tended to take egalitarian politics more personally than most members of the left.

Why is it that ‘most vegetarians are Jewish?’ I think because more Jews are political, and many think this extends to their actual daily lives, and is not outside them. Something similar pertains with gays–OR DID AT THAT TIME. Now there’s almost no such thing as ‘gay male.’

Hekate Jayne

Do you mean that they use dogs as weapons? And a status of masculinity?

If so, I agree.

Dogs are not weapons. They are also not meant to be fought in pits for the entertainment of sick, pathetic males.

Women don’t do dogfighting. We just don’t. We also don’t shoot, neglect, starve, etc. animals. Too many males find that if they can cause pain and suffering, that it makes them happy.

Males really do love death and destruction.

Liz

Men use dogs for everything from causing low-grade public disturbances (for example, refusing to obey leash and wildlife protection laws) to terrorizing people (for example, attacking protesters during the civil rights era).

Alienigena

Unfortunately it isn’t just men who ignore leash bylaws, the people in my building constantly let their dogs wander around the laundry room, the hallways and into the elevator without leashes, all these practices violate city bylaws and building policies. Some tenants have very intimidating dogs (e.g. large pit bulls). I think that having a dog is a way to extend personal space. I was raised with pets (rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, mice, fish, turtles, dogs, cats) so am not afraid of dogs. But I really don’t want them sniffing my hand, grocery bags or my crotch. I have had one too many dogs jump over fences to clamp their teeth over my hand (generally these were German Shepherds, one a police (RCMP) dog) while I was on a public sidewalk or the walkway of the place (a neighbour’s dog) that I lived to think that one can assume a stranger’s dog is safe. I generally don’t interact with other people’s dogs, especially in confined spaces. And it is not just the big dog that are a problem. There was a case of a small dog in a Home Depot store (big box store) ripping into a employee’s face when she tried to be friendly. People think I am dog unfriendly, maybe, but unless I know the dog and trust the dog owner I won’t be interacting with a dog, definitely not getting up close and personal.

Eeeeeexactly. The logical conclusion of trans ideology is the complete rejection of homosexuality in favor of transing lesbians and gays and enforcing patriarchal gender roles. It is literal, physical, surgical sterilization of homosexual people in service to sexism and misogyny. How anyone fails to see this boggles my mind and gives me an ache in the heart.

will

^^THIS^^

FierceMild

Yes. And when those men (both of them) willing and able to see what’s happening really see it, they are also revolted. It’s just plain repellent and inhumane. Also, deeply pathetic.

FierceMild

Political solidarity of the oppressed may extend from Jews to blacks but it is from Jews to black men or from black men to gay men. Men absolutely never extend the lessons they learn from oppression or suffering to women because THEY DONT CONSIDER US HUMAN. They Will. Not. Empathize. With. Women. They find it degrading.

JoeMonoco

“gross promiscuity, hookup culture”
People have the right to have sex whenever and wherever they can find someone who wants to have sex with them. Bonding beyond that creates complications and is likely to fail when the people aren’t compatible. What’s wrong with hooking up with someone who would make a terrible partner? You have to practice somewhere so when you find someone who would make a great partner you can blow their mind.

Hanakai

Joe the Male writes: “People have the right to have sex whenever and wherever they can find someone who wants to have sex with them.”

Yes, we understand that that is the male attitude, and that is their justification for perpetuating prostitution and sex with minors.

Among other things, here is what is wrong with hookup culture. It spreads disease, which is why a quarter of young women have a persistent sexually transmitted infectious disease. Loveless exploitive hookup sex is what spread AIDS/HIV, for which the rest of us had to pay massive amounts of taxes.

Hookup cultureleads people (men) to look at women as nothing but cum-buckets and objects for male exploitation, instead of as humans with hopes, dreams, fears, joys. This might be why there is so much depression and other psychiatric disorders among young women. Casual loveless sex results too often in unwanted pregnancy and unwanted children — yes, because if you do not care about a person, who cares if she gets pregnant, it’s all ‘Wham, bam, thank you ma’am’.
And hookup culture affects the psyche and soul, making people less capable of loving, coarser, a people who sees others as objects for exploitation. Hookup culture focuses only on male satisfaction and pleasure, which is why most men orgasm from hookup sex, but women rarely do. The focus on heavy drinking and minimal communication promotes rape culture. Hookup culture feeds into and perpetuates a broad pattern of structural sexism.

The rules for hookup culture require people to be emotional cripples, as hookup rules are: No feelings. Do not get attached. Do not have genuine affection for your partner. Don’t get upset if they don’t text again after using and discarding. If you have feelings, then you are a disgusting gold-digging female trying to manipulate males into commitment. Women cannot win: If they refuse to hookup with any comer, then they are castigated as prudes and prickteases; if they hookup with the frat boys, then they are called sluts and whores.

Hookup culture is the male form of sexuality, as is most evident from the way homosexual males have organized their sexual practices, which include widespread promiscuity, multiple hookups in the same night with anonymous strangers, glory holes, etc. Your hookup culture does nothing for women but further exploit them.

Here is what one young woman wrote abotuher hooklup culture experience: “I thought that casual sex was degrading because I had felt degraded every time I had it . . . . the reason I felt degraded was because my hookup partners had treated me like an object, like a means to an end. They didn’t care about my pleasure, they disrespected and ignored me afterwards, and they were often pushy and coercive.”

will

“Hookup culture is the male form of sexuality”

Yes, it is definitely a western liberal patriarchal form of sexuality. I think that men are so privileged and entitled in our culture that they do not differentiate between masturbation and penetrating someone to get off – it’s all the same, except the latter replaces the hand with a woman, child or animal. It’s as hollow and souless as eating out of boredom while others go hungry. If men “need” to ejaculate frequently, they can pull it off themselves. Sex with another human should be a privilege and it should be easily differentiated from masturbation.

Hekate Jayne

Only males would fuck someone that they don’t even like.

Everything gives you all a boner. Even things that repulse you.

And that males are not only OK with that, but you never even think about it critically.

Alienigena

Reminds me of a comment made by someone on this site that was just brilliant about the fact that there is a male fetish for all female body types, body parts, levels of hirsuteness, weights, disabilities, etc. The take home message being that sorry men don’t like you for you. It is a fetish. So true. Sad, but likely true.

FierceMild

News for you, pal, every single woman is different in her sexual preferences. You are most assuredly NOT going to learn how to blow the mind of a long term partner by drunk-shagging strangers whom you fail to bring to orgasm. Human beings aren’t ‘practice’ and that attitude indicates that you are thinking of people as things, which makes you an abysmal failure as a sex partner and deplorable as a person.

Alienigena

So glad someone else responded first. All I could do was laugh when I saw JoeMonoco’s comment then sort of frown when it sunk in that he sees certain women (well virtually all women except for ‘the one’) as practise and disposable. He completely misunderstands the purpose of the blog and the article. And ignores its focus on the negative impact of queer culture on the rights of women.

M. Zoidberg

Woh. I just had a nasty flashback from college where 17 year old me, sitting right across from my then 2nd boyfriend (ever) in the lounge, called me “practice” in front of our entire group of friends. There was chuckling all around, and instead of saying something, I just froze, then sheepishly shrugged. And he broke up with me!

I internalised that notion for years, and figured that’s all I was good for. I let men use me as a disposable human being for years.

Judaism doesn’t get a pass on misogyny or a get-out-of-criticism-free card because of the Holocaust.

Hanakai

No, those are truthful statements. You are simply using knee-jerk mindless name-calling to attempt to keep the truth hidden. Your calling me anti-Semitic is a rather fascistic way of attempting to silence a woman’s voice and trying to hide the plain truth.

The reality is that Judaism was the first and is one of the three monotheistic patriarchal religions which relegates women to second-class status. Judaism hates and denigrates women, and sees women as unclean, as do Islam and Christianity. And Judaism gave us the Adam and Eve creation myth, in which Eve supposed took the advice of a talking snake, ate the forbidden fruit and is responsible for all the sufferings of the world. The truth is that Judaism is anti-woman and has been ever thus.

It is also not anti-Semitic to express the truth that many of the lawyers of the civil rights era were Jewish.

Nor is it anti-Semitic to express the truth that Jewish-American men have been the driving forces in pornography in the USA, both as pornographers and as the lawyers who defended anti-woman porn as a First Amendment issue. When women in Portland, Oregon attempted to legislate strip clubs out of the city, the strip club owners were represented by Jewish lawyers, you can find their names in the court records, and now Portland has more strip clubs than any other American city. (I happen to know the daughters of those lawyers).

Further, Jewish men have been so central to the pornography business in the USA that wikipedia has a whole category devoted to Jewish-American Pornographers. Let’s see, there is Al Goldstein, who started various porn magazines: Screw, Bitch, SMut, Death, et al. Then there are other famous porno Jews: Larry Flynt of Hustler fame, Jenna Jameson, James Deen, Ron Jeremy, et al.,

And here is a relevant quote from The Jewish Quarterly: “. . . but there’s no getting away from the fact that secular Jews have played (and still continue to play) a disproportionate role throughout the adult film industry in America. Jewish involvement in pornography has a long history in the United States, as Jews have helped to transform a fringe subculture into what has become a primary constituent of Americana. These are the ‘true blue Jews’.”

Get a brain before you start with your knee-jerk mindless accusations of anti-Semitism.

Topazthecat

Here is a very good December 2016 article by British neuroscientist Dr.Gina Rippon in which she debunks these common sexist gender stereotypes and brain sex claims and points out that there is a lot of evidence for the plasticity of the human brain,and how different life experiences and different environments can change the structure and function of even adults brains,but that a lot of scientists conveniently don’t recognize this when it comes to claims about brain sex differences.

There’s marriage in matrilineal cultures. The difference is that the husband comes and lives in your house and when you get tired of him you can send him home to his mama.

I wouldn’t mind us keeping marriage as an institution if we could change it to be more like that.

Bonus: Men like living in matrilineal cultures too. There’s a reason you don’t see Mosuo and Din’eh (Navajo) men represented on MRA message boards.

JoeMonoco

Meh. Second class citizens are always “happy” because they are brainwashed. Man parts are not an antidote to that.

FierceMild

How does a matrilineal culture = men are second class citizens?

Alienigena

Yeah, my question too. In the matrilineal cultures of indigenous peoples on the west coast of Canada the mother’s brother is an important person in the lives of his nieces, nephews (his sister’s children). That also seems to be the case in the Mosuo people of China. Matrilineal cultures foreground relationships between people in the maternal line. Men are part of that line as a mother’s brother (e.g. uncle). The expectation is that the mother’s brother act responsibly toward his sister’s children, rather than simply mouth off at them, so yeah, it is tough Joe Monoco, when you are expected to behave responsibly and not simply harangue your sister’s kids.

Also there is a lot of evidence from sociologists and anthropologists that there are androgynous cultures. Many anthropologists like Walter Williams author of the award winning,The Spirit and The Flesh,and many other anthropologists have done field work for decades in places like Tahiti and Malaysia, women and men are encouraged to have androgynous roles there and they are not polarized into “opposite” categories and gender roles,and they are more alike in their personalities and behaviors. This is thoroughly explained in the good book, Manhood In The Making:Cultural Concepts Of Masculinity by anthropologist David D.Gilmore. And the men there unlike in our very gender divided,gender stereotyped, sexist male dominated society ,aren’t punished for being similar to women, they are encouraged and rewarded for it!

And it’s in the very gender divided, gender stereotyped sexist male dominated societies where the sexes are polarized into “opposite” categories and gender roles that makes *more* gender differences! As I already explained,here are also a lot of studies by good parent child development psychologists that clearly demonstrate that female and male babies are actually born biologically more alike than different with very few differences,yet they are perceived and treated systematically very differently right from the moment of birth on from parents and other care givers.

There is also tons of psychological studies from decades showing that most psychological differences between the sexes are very small in most areas and that most large differences are actually individual people differences. And there are also plenty of very good academic studies by communication professors and experts that have actually found very small differences in communication between women and men. Women and men are actually biologically and psychologically more alike than different and gender is mostly an artificial socially constructed category.It’s more likely like 85- 90%. Our brains are actually more alike than different just(which is a miracle considering how the brain’s structure and function are shaped and changed from different life experiences and different learning and environments even adult brains) as our external genitals are and plenty of research shows that the structure and function of the brain can actually be changed by the interaction with different life long environments,different life long experiences,and social and cultural conditioning.

DEBUNKING COMMON SEXIST MYTHS OF GENDER A Lot Of Strong, Important Psychological Research Debunking Common Sexist, Gender Myths And Gender Stereotypes

Topazthecat

Important information from October 2015 by neuroscientist Dr.Lise Elliott about how new large research shows the sexes brains are much more alike than different! Three major areas in the brain that were claimed to be different were found to not be different using over 6,000 women and men including the myth that the corpus callosum is more connected in women.

Here is a January 2017 extensive brain study by neuroscientist Dr.Lise Elliot and her colleagues did of 30 years worth of brain scans of women and men and girls and boys in the area of the brain called the amygdala which past studies based on much smaller samples claimed to have significant differences between the sexes. The findings show that despite the impression that men and women are profoundly different large analyses of brain measures are finding far more similarity than difference,there is no categorically ”male” brain or ”female” brain and much more overlap than difference for nearly all brain measures.The article says this area of the brain is a key structure involving all types of emotion and social behaviors such as aggression and sexual arousal.

Dr.Lise Eliot said,It mentions implications for understanding transgenderism in this new article too.

PBS TV college course program Discovering Psychology ,Sex And Gender episode explains research has found that the sexes are more alike than different and that most gender differences are learned not inborn hosted by award winning Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo

It really isn’t surprising at all that the sexes brains are more alike than different,( although given the fact that there is a lot of evidence from neuroscience that human brains are plastic and easily molded and shaped by different life experiences and different conditioning,and environments, and the fact that the sexes are born biologically more alike than different with very few differences but are still perceived and treated very differently systematically in every way by parents and other adult care givers, from the moment it’s learned they are a girl or a boy, before they are born it’s amazing that our brains are still more alike than different,and that we are psychologically more alike than different to despite all of this!) the clitoris and penis are very similar because they come from the same exact tissue, so does the male scrotum, the female vulva and even the ovaries and testicles.

And men even have the same breast tissue that is responsive to estrogen and they can even develop full breasts ready for a bra right away if for some reason their testosterone level goes down,the small amount of estrogen(they also have small amounts of progesterone which is necessary for healthy bone development in both sexes and other things for health http://www.livestrong.com/article/290192-is-progesterone-produced-by-men/) that is normally in their bodies,causes this it’s a condition called gynecomastia. But of course none of all of these similarities are even recognized much less emphasized because we still all live in a very sexist,artificially gender divided,gender stereotyped,male dominated society that is totally obsessed and oriented to making the sexes into opposite artificial ”feminine” and ”masculine” categories.

Topazthecat

And after over a 100 years of intelligence testing,there has never been a difference in general intelligence found between the sexes,and they also have a large overlap in their traits,and abilities.And whales have larger brains than humans,also feminist former TV talk show host Phil Donahue wrote in his very good 1985 book,The Human Animal,that the biggest brain that was in the the Guinness Book of World Records,belonged to a man who was an idiot.Intelligence really has much more to do with how many microscopic neurons people have and how strongly they are connected which has nothing to do with brain sizes.But sexist woman-haters,which are all too common still tell the woman-hating lie,that men having a bigger brain means they are ”smarter”.

Kris

I love how they think that they can simply choose and support the concept of gender roles and it has no effect on anyone else. It’s just a personal, individual decision. Everyone is an island. There is no such thing as society. Ugh.

Hekate Jayne

Ohmygod. People be stupid, lol.

Yes, what we absolutely need is more dominant males! Being dominant! And all girly people need to be baking pies and shaving their legs, because windows and doors!

I can’t believe that people don’t know how stupid they sound.

FierceMild

What a mess. I’m dreaming of an island populated by radical feminist homesteading women…

Deb Thompson

“We need to stop looking around, and asking ourselves who to turn to next: our sisters have the answer.” This ! First ,Second, And Last , This is what we should always be thinking and and working on, everyday Building up again, making ourselves more steadfast, stronger, and resilient,to keep the focus on women , and not waver, we already know sacrifice, and we need to focus more on what we as women need to be and to betterment of ourselves and each other. Rise Up .

M. Zoidberg

Unfortunately, some of our sisters are playing for the wrong side.

I got un-invited to a wedding this summer because of my “TERF-iness.”

When trying to argue in a thread that my 10 year old little sister shouldn’t ever have to be in a situation where she sees a naked, biological man in the women’s change room at the pool, I got dogpiled by friends and strangers telling me how much of a bigot I was. See, by not having the “lady-dick” discussion with the kid and not brainwashing her with bullshit non-facts about biology, I’m knowingly supporting “violent thoughts and ideas towards transwomen.” I was un-invited right there in the message thread because “my attitude” wouldn’t mesh well with the rest of the guests.

All I could muster after everything was, “Enjoy the lady-dicks, ladies!” ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Claudia Manion

It was via the comments on another article at Feminist Current, that I first heard “Sisters Before Misters” <3

Meghan Murphy

If trans was defined only based on those who had legit dysphoria, I would agree. But that is no longer how gender identity is discussed or defined, popularly. Certainly not everyone who identifies as trans today has been diagnosed with dysphoria.